by V. K. Ludwig
Under threats and force, my legs finally rose, and I struggled my tears back to where they came from. There! It is done. That wasn’t so bad, was it? No reason for all this gut-eating sorrow, worming through me like a blood-sucking parasite that wanted to drain my dreams. My eyes burned. A few tears are ok, I guess. Each salty drop would only add to the burden I had to carry for eternity — deserved and heavy enough to wear me down. U turned around, but stopped halfway.
I gasped and shuffled back a step or two. Holding my fingers to my parted lips, I checked if they trembled. They did. My heart raced and pushed me into a state of flight. Wide in terror, my eyes darted from left to right, but my head wouldn’t follow. There was nowhere to run to, but it wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway. River stood right in front of me, his eyes narrowed as if he waited for his prey to make a fatal step.
“So,” he said. “Who will be the lucky father?”
Chapter 26
The truth
River
She stood in front of me, beautiful as ever but frozen like the Nelson in February. Her parted lips trembled but didn’t let a single noise cross into the room. Her complexion had turned pale, as if someone had dropped the creamer into the breakfast coffee, unable to fumble it out. Bright enough for a surgeon, the ceiling lamps above us didn't help her bloodless skin either and painted the room a cold white. Bitterness boiled inside my veins, pushing the scent of blood inside my flaring nostrils as if threads had popped all over my body.
“So,” I said. “Who is going to be the lucky father?”
Not sure why I asked because I didn’t really give a shit. It wouldn’t be me, and the realization of that punched me in the face so hard, it made Rowan look like a weakling. My hard broke in a million shards the moment the council demanded her back, but now she crushed them into rough specks of dust at the bottom of her heels. Like a good old bitch slap in the face, the reality of things sunk in on me and made me stumble back.
I swallowed hard and kept my voice steady. “How could you?”
Of course, she said nothing but remained rooted to the ground with her fingers on her lips. The face of this woman as empty as her heart resembled a barrel without a bottom to me — no matter how much effort you pour in, it’ll never fill. But this?
Spiked by my rage, I kicked a stool across the room which shattered against the cabinets. She startled and shook, but I didn’t feel sorry for it — quite the opposite, really. If it were for me, I would have kicked whatever wasn't anchored to the ground, letting out the bottled steam. Defeated and enraged at the same time, I waved a fist in the air and stared into her deceitful face.
“Let me ask you something,” I said and pointed my finger as straight as the barrel of a gun. “Obviously, this is the reason you came here in the first place. And I kinda’ get that after what you told me about your application. But holy fucking shit, was there ever a time when you considered not going through with it? Did you ever want my child, or was I just some sort of toy to you? Good enough to have fun with, but pushed into the drawer once shit was about to get real?”
“T-there … was there —”
“What?” I cocked my head. “I can’t understand shit of what you’re mumbling, so you better speak up because I deserve to know. Was there ever a time you actually considered having my child?”
Her nods bounced up and down like a rubber ball. “Yes… there was a time, but —”
“I don’t believe you,” I snarled. “You fucked me back there by the school because you knew my chances to knock you up were so slim, you decided to take the risk. That’s what I was to you, right? A risk, because women like you can’t be satisfied with anything else but perfect children, with perfect genetics, perfect IQ’s and… whatever, just, just perfect.”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest as if to hold herself in place and blinked away her tears before they had even formed. A noisy breath blew out of her nostrils, and her face turned from cinnamon to crimson red within seconds. “I tried to talk to you about this so many times, but you either wouldn’t let me finish, or someone interrupted us.”
“Talk to me? Interrupted us?” I gave a hollow laugh. “I remember at least two occasions during which you took the time to moan and pant in my ear, instead of sitting me down to talk. And don’t come to me with you were overwhelmed by those sudden desires and shit. If I could control myself for twenty-eight years, please don’t tell me you couldn’t keep your shit together for those couple of weeks you were here. You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into when you came here.”
“I did not,” she screamed, and her voice shook underneath the strain. “I am feeling things I have never dealt with before, and sometimes I do not understand how to handle it. Most of the time I don’t even have names for it or words to describe what I am experiencing. Maybe I could have tried harder to talk to you, but you were so happy talking about a child with me and, I guess, something…”
Her words turned into tear-drowned mutters which sent tingles across my skin. Once again, the primal force deep at my core wanted to take her in my arms and kiss those tears from her cheeks. No way! I told the cavemen inside me to stay out of this. For heaven’s sake, she has a sperm sample of another dude in her pocket!
I plunged my hand onto my hips. “You were saying…”
“When I came here, Bry asked me if I would love my child any less just because it wasn’t perfect. I didn’t have an answer to that until it was too late, River. What you said, like, about being a risk…” She hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath. “Well, it’s true. All the time I thought I can never have a child from you, because you where I come from, people consider you inferior. Not as a person, of course, just… not good enough to procreate.”
Inferior. The word alone cracked my skull open and sucked my brain stupid. I never really cared about not being in the databank. The last thing I wanted was hundreds of little bastard copies running around in the Districts without their daddy.
“And that was your answer?” I asked and stared her down. “That I am not good enough to be the father of your child?”
Ayanna sunk to her knees and looked up at me from terrified eyes. “No! At some point, something inside of me changed, and I didn’t care anymore. But by that time the council already requested me back, and suddenly my answer doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You still didn’t tell me your answer.”
She sunk her head and pushed herself over the floor to lean against one of the tables. Her face sagged, and her lips returned to a tremble, so strong it made her teeth chatter. Her eyes wandered across the room, but no matter how hard she tried to escape my eyes, I pinned them down each time they flicked at me. I had to hear it from her own mouth. If there is nothing else, you can give me, at least let me hear the words. Say it!
Her voice came out a breath, but my ears longed so much for her words, they would have heard her no matter how silent. “I wanted your child. Our child.”
“Then marry me!” It blurted out of me like an unquenchable spring.
“River, I cannot marry you.” She pushed herself up and walked over to me, her steps slow and mindfully placed. When she took my hands, my body vibrated at the sensation. “All these feelings are so new to me and so foreign, and nobody ever taught me how to handle them. I don’t know what love feels like, or how things should be between a married couple. All I have ever seen was how things should not be in a marriage.”
My mouth fell open, but no words came out; instead, a sad kind of soberness shocked my insides. No, she loves me, I know she does! Her pebbled skin when we made love, the way she caressed my body afterward and all those tears in her eye. Didn’t she see that what we have runs deeper than pillow talk?
I flinched back, and her hands dropped by her side. “Are… are you saying you don’t love me?”
“I just don’t know how —”
I waved my hand up and indicated I had heard quite enough, and she took it without compl
aint. What kind of idiot am I, thinking that the first girl I ever get to spend time with would fall in love with me? I am nothing but a fool.
She wanted my child, but she wouldn't marry me because she didn’t love me. Not the kind of trade in I expected, but at least I could find closure. Closure is a relief, right? Not that it mattered, considering that I would be dead in about a week. Two, if Rowan shows mercy and gives me more water and food than the others ever got.
I checked my holo-band and facepalmed myself. “We have to leave, or someone will catch us on our way back to the cabin.”
“You are not going to call Rowan?”
“What would be the point of that?” I shrugged my shoulders. “You’ve got what you wanted and telling Rowan will only complicate things more. I think we have done enough damage already, and I’d rather leave it at that.”
Her forehead curled up. “Why are you helping me?”
“Let’s go. We don’t have much time.” I opened the door and made sure the hallway was clear.
She followed me two doors down into the old file room, and I pointed at the small window. I pushed it up and waved her to me.
“I’ll go first,” I whispered. “Step on this chair once you climb out, and I’ll guide your leg and help you down. Don’t make a single sound, or the guards will be at our ass quicker than you would imagine. Oh and, by the way, Monk is waiting outside behind a tree, so don’t scream or anything like that.”
I reached my legs through the open window and held on to the frame. With some elbow grease, I lowered myself to the ground and took a look around. Quiet. Bet the guards waited out the final minutes of their shift by the warm fire. Ayanna stretched her leg out, and I offered one palm as support and grabbed the waistband of her pants with the other. Lowering her to the ground, I took in her lemony scent one last time, and blinked back some tears. Index finger in front of my mouth, I crouched down and gestured her to do the same. Together, we sneaked over to the gray-green tree line, and Monk wiggled his tail.
I pointed at the direction of the cabin. “Run home.”
He took off like stung by a bee, sprinting through the dry leaves and ferns without giving it a second thought. Mumbles grew into shouts.
“Is that a wolf?” a guard shouted. In unison, they ran behind my dog.
I grabbed Ayanna by her hips and flung her over my shoulder like Adair had done it that day. I shook my head. He would never find out how he hit the nail on the head. Not much reconciliation for my true loss, but still better than nothing. We climbed up a slope and hit the trail to the cabin, her legs swinging against my back.
“Are you planning on carrying me all the way home to the cabin?”
I pushed her into the air and rearranged her on my shoulder. “This isn’t your home, darling, and it’s about time for you to go back to where you came from.”
She wiggled her shapely body, huffed and puffed and eventually dropped her head against my back. “At least let me down, River, so I can explain.”
My strained laugh hollered through the forest, hit the trunks and bounced right back at me. “There’s nothing to talk about, because I can finally see the entire picture of it all. You had to come here to steal one of our samples because of you loony mom, and I was nothing but a tasty hurdle in your way that you stumbled into twice. And I sure as hell won’t let you down, because all you got inside of you are lies and stupid fucking ideas.”
“But —”
“No but,” I shouted. “They will take you away from here any minute now, and you’ll be raising your perfect platinum blonde baby.”
Her struggles calmed into a limp body, like a confirmation of everything I had just said.
Chapter 27
A note
Ayanna
“You look like shit.” Isabelle took me into her warm embrace. “Oh, sweet girl, I really missed you. They had me all worked up when they said you are on your way back. What went wrong?”
“Everything,” I whispered into her soft hair.
My body tensed at her hug, a poor substitute for River’s hard chest and those arms he always draped around me like curtains, but welcomed nonetheless. The noon sun blasted through the endless windows in my room and onto the unforgiving concrete beneath our feet. Whispers, talks, and rumors crawled through the door gap uncensored, but I cared little.
She pushed me away and stared at me, her eyes wide. “Please tell me they didn’t hurt you. Did they? Did anybody touch you?”
“The woman they sent over here in exchange, um, Autumn, she apparently stole classified information and kidnapped one of our scientists. Nobody told you?”
She jerked away and drew in a long breath, her eyes a picture-perfect example of pure shock. “They didn’t release a single report about it. Now I understand why they called you back so abruptly. Did they arrest her?”
I walked over to my empty bed and touched the white sheets as if I would find warmth there, but instead caught a fateful whiff of bleach and nothing more.
“They can’t find her.” I sighed and lowered myself onto the mattress. Not a thing about this room had changed, but unease crept up on me as if I found myself a tourist in a foreign country. In place of a stove, the vent blasted dry heat into my face which made my eyes burn and my throat itch. The holographic image of the ponytail palm had nothing on the sweeping oaks and pine trees around our cabin, and their fresh and heady scents. Our cabin? A long, drawn-out moan bubbled from my mouth.
“Yeah.” Isabelle walked over and sat on my bed. “That doesn’t exactly surprise me. But I feel like there is something else, Ayanna. Earlier I thought you look like shit and, well, don’t get me wrong you really look terrible, but you changed. I’m not sure if it’s something about your looks, or if it runs deeper than that. You seem older… no, older is the wrong word. I guess I meant to say mature.”
The way she had tracked it down made my ears tingle. I had left a girl and returned a woman, a thing so strange for our community it apparently stood right out. I can’t continue with all those lies!
“Listen, you are my best friend here, and I hate to shock you like that, but I can’t keep living in a web of lies. Please promise not to hate me.” I pushed myself up and took a deep breath. “The truth is, I —”
“Slept with a guy.”
“What?” I cocked my head. “W-what did you just say?”
The corners of her lips quirked into a smile. “You slept with a guy. It’s kind of obvious because you’re swinging that ass of yours as if it wants to be spanked.”
“No, I don’t,” I blurted. “How could you even see something like that?”
She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. “It takes one to know one, I guess.”
Her statement hit me with the punch of a charlie horse at the back of my head and left my voice frail. “Wait a moment, are you saying you had sex with a man too?”
“Uh-huh.” She sunk her head and her shoulders followed, dropping by her sides as if they had heavy pouches tied to them. “Sounds like a lifetime ago, but I remember how it made me feel connected and, hm, loved.”
I struggled my mouth shut; who was I to judge her? We both experienced the touch of a man, with the difference that she could speak of love, and I still choked at the word alone.
“Did you, uh, like, love him?”
She held my gaze for a brief moment and sighed, retreating her eyes back to the many hues of gray. “Yeah, I loved him more than anything else in this world, except for Rose, of course. I still love him.”
A million questions darted through my head, but only one burned my tongue like a hot lump of coal. “What does it feel like when you love someone?”
The flicker of a smile passed her lips, filled with the memories of a time long gone. “I think most people associate love with all those positive things like your heart beats faster when the person you love is close to you. Or how you feel complete and as one. Nobody ever tells you that love can be a bitch because it rips you apart from the i
nside when you are separated. And when things don’t work out as planned, you’re in for a rollercoaster of emotions, and the highs are not nearly as high as the lows are low. It just sucks.”
As if trying to shake off one of those lows, she shot up and rubbed her hands together. “You didn’t fall in love with him, did you?”
“No.” My heart clenched at the two letters, and for the very first time, I feared the car I had seated myself in stared down at a ninety-feet drop into an emotional abyss.
“Ayanna, you don’t —”
The knock nothing but the civil procedure, the door of my room swung open and almost banged into the wall behind it. An armed man stepped inside, his palm on his holstered gun and his eyes darting from one wall to the other.
“Clear,” he said and gestured Isabelle to sit down next to me on the bed.
She flicked up her chin. “Who the hell do you think you are, storming in here like —”
He grabbed her wrist, pulled it behind her back and pushed her deep into my mattress. She didn’t flinch, and neither did I, but inside, an alarm beeped through every part of my body. Why did they send a defender to my room? What did I do?
A guy in cream linen pants and snug gray shirt followed, rubbing his fingers over a tool which resembled a metallic blue rocket, not much bigger than his hand. A cloud of rubbing alcohol and cheap floor polish followed him around and made me gag. Without introduction, he nodded at the defender and me stepped over to my side. He grabbed my arm, stretched it out and… Ouch! The rocket had poked into the underside of my lower arm, leaving behind a microscopic drop of blood.
